Whispers Forum

The issue raised in date with RTI has been settled by Apex Court in Civil Appeal Nos 1966-67 of 2020 arising out of SLP no 5840 of 2015 titled Chief Information Commissioner v. High Court of Gujarat and another by full bench judgment on 4th March 2020. Para 43 of the judgement is relevant please. The information seeker will have to follow the procedure specified in special Acts or Rules.
Yash Pal Singal IPS Retd Former DGP Haryana and former State Chief Information Commissioner, Haryana.
Chandra Shekhar Interview
Wonderful thoughts. I had the privilege to interact with him on few occasions briefly and found him an officer par excellence apart from a very good human being. My salute to you Sir.
R K Gupta

War in West Asia has now commenced with brutal results being shown on the hour by the hour by our media and those overseas. The forces of terror are gleefully exploiting this media attention to further their political propaganda and worse. India has successfully stayed out of conflict zones by a firm policy of neutrality. WIC has been a leading forum for discussion, about the ails and travails of the common Indian. In this climate of warfare and its likely approach to our shores what should a Bharatvasi do? Remember your home, job, industry, financial assets, family, car, and more are safe when our country is safe. Today two million Ukrainian people are refugees in Europe without anything. Increasingly calls are now emerging for these Ukrainian people to go home. Nobody wants them anymore. European economy has been battered by the senseless war there. The people of Gaza will soon suffer the same as the Ukrainians. If war comes to India despite our best efforts, look at our situation. To the north we have the Chinese army, to the west we have the Pakistani beggar state, to the East we have Myanmar, and to the south we have the Indian Ocean. There is no territory to go to and seek refuge. Today India has worked very hard and we have: $ 600 billion in forex reserves at home; our gold assets within the country is 25000 tons as stated by World Gold Council recently. We have the fastest growing economy in the world as stated by IMF and World Bank recently. There is much to protect as outlined above and more as we march to become an advanced society in the decade ahead. Indians have themselves, 1.4 billion of us only , to overcome war , from our adversaries, who covet our land , our financial assets, our gold, our industry, our economy, our independence. We need to stand together, support our Armed Forces, through thick and thin now. The present central government has performed very well in the last decade and ensured a terrorist free society. We need that strong government to ensure progress for our children and grandchildren. WW3 if and when it occurs will wreck havoc globally worse than the last world war.
Devindra Sethi

Odisha bureaucrats are very powerful, due to weak political control over the state, the bureaucrats there have started thinking of themselves as princes and queens, forgetting their constitutional duties and oaths of office. The central government should come up with a policy with regard to SOP in public life and work stations, along with dealing in public. The ‘Maai Baap’ culture of bureaucrats has to go in modern India.
Madhulika Mishra
Infiltration across border
Major infiltration across borders during the Congress regime. I would like to correct Vijay Kumar. The word ‘infiltrators’ should be replaced with “prospective vote bank of Congress”.
Pradeep Kumar

Forum has stated that there are 112 Deputy Secretaries who are stagnating in the grade and are eligible for promotion to the Director’s Grade. Further, 86 Deputy Secretaries who have completed 14-15 years combined service in Under Secretary grade and present grade against the eligibility of 10 years and they can also be promoted to Director’s Grade. Irony is that many of these officers have almost served over 35 years in the Service and they will retire in coming months without getting legitimate due of promotion in the Director’s Grade. This is not only unfortunate for these retiring officers but have very adverse effect on the moral and motivation of the officers of Service.
GB

Whisper in the corridors Forum article by Shri Vijay Kumar is a true prediction in store for the country where there will be a competition by different religious and caste groups to increase their population to get proportionate political and administrative benefits and again merit will become a casualty. What is surprising is the suicidal approach of Congress perhaps due influence of leftist in its ranks when they know that OBC mandal politics was brought by Mr V P SINGH to finish Congress vote banks and therefore these groups rallied behind different state wise OBC leaders finishing Congress countrywide monopoly. Again OBC votes will tilt towards Regional OBC parties/leaders damaging Congress more whereas BJP vote share will remain intact ensuring their almost certain victory 2024 but may also deprive the Nation of a good effective opposition in parliament.
S C Saboo

These days, there is a lot of talk about the caste census. Jiski Jitni Bhagedari, Uski Utni Hissedari is the new mantra sought to be given by "leaders" of various hues across the political spectrum. It is a most dangerous principle. It will lead to different religious, caste or tribal groups trying to increase their population to either keep up their ratio relative to other religious, caste or tribal groups or to gain an advantage over other groups. In this competitive scenario, the country will have to suffer population explosion afresh. As it is, the country is suffering from the ills of overpopulation. With this new population explosion in the making, all efforts at development will be drowned in another sea of people.
Vijay Kumar

While, discussing abrogation of Art 370 in Parliament, the union Home minister had promised restoration of POK ( Azad Kashmir or Pakistan administered Kashmir to the US) to India. However, with changing geo-political situation, actualising the promise seems a far cry, more so, after the US envoy in Pakistan recent, secret visit to Gilgit-Baltistan in POK. The envoy also visited the port city where China is executing the infrastructure projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor(C-PEC).
While, India’s MEA has not yet reacted, the US envoy to India has sought to justify his Pakistani counterpart's visit by drawing a parallel with American delegation recent visit to Kashmir during G20 meetings.Reiterateing the US stand he affirmed that the matter should be resolved between India and Pakistan without the third party intervention. According to media report, he US envoy referred to the region as ‘Azad Jammu and Kashmir’.
On the contrary, India lays claim to the entire Kashmir region, including parts administered by Pakistan beyond the LoC. This is a serious development jeopardising India's hope of retrieval of POK.
Against this background, one wonders whether the US diplomat's secret visit to Gilgit-Baltistan has any connection with the on-going stand-off between India and Canada that has accused India of its citizen's murder. Canada claims its stand is based on shared intelligence with the US, its five eyes partner.
The US does not seem satisfied with India's denial to the accusation. Experts believe that India's knee-jerk reaction, should have been preceded by diplomatic parleys.
All things considered, India's image after G-20 summit, has surely plummeted.
A K Saxena (A former civil servant)